International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 18821888

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International Journal of Fatigue

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijfatigue

A reliability assessment method for structural metallic component with

inherent aws based on nite element analysis and probabilistic fracture
mechanics model
Bo Wu a,b,*, Anglika Brckner-Foit b, Qiang Li a, Lu Chen a, Jinbiao Fu a, Chaohui Zhang a
a
b

College of Materials Science and Engineering, Fuzhou University, University Park, 350108 Fuzhou, PR China
Quality and Reliability Laboratory, Institute of Materials Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitt Kassel, Mnchbergstr. 3, 34125 Kassel, Germany

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 18 September 2008
Received in revised form 2 February 2009
Accepted 7 February 2009
Available online 20 February 2009
Keywords:
Reliability assessment
Lifetime distribution
Finite element analysis
Probabilistic fracture mechanics
Fatigue crack growth

a b s t r a c t
Reliability assessment is an essential step to promote advanced materials and components into applications. In this paper, a general reliability assessment framework was proposed to predict the lifetime distribution of a structural steel component with inherent aws. By combining materials information, nite
element analysis of the stress eld and probabilistic fracture mechanics model, the distribution of failure
probability subjected to fatigue loads was predicted. The local failure probability distributions identify
the critical regions of the component visually. Both the global failure probability and the local failure
probability distribution can be considered as essential and fundamental data in structure design and system maintenance. Focus was placed on the probabilistic fracture mechanics model and fatigue crack
growth model.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Structural safety and reliability assessment is essential work for
design and maintenance of modern engineering systems. The systems range from microelectronic and bio-medical devices to large
machinery and structures, as well as civil engineering [14]. For
example, in a commercial project concerning a high efcient gas
turbine rotor in European Union, the full project was subdivided
into ve work packages, and one of them was to develop a reliability assessment tool for the steel component made from a nano-precipitate hardened high nitrogen steel. The reliability assessment
tool integrates material properties, nite element stress analysis
and probabilistic fracture mechanics consideration. The probabilistic fracture mechanics model is generally based on the assumption
that failure occurs due to the subcritical and catastrophic crack
growth of crack-like defects introduced during fabrication. Such
defects are initially present with a given probability, and are found
during pre- and in-service inspections with a probability depending on their size. The subcritical and catastrophic growth of these
defects is governed by fracture mechanics considerations, which

* Corresponding author. Address: College of Materials Science and Engineering,

Fuzhou University, University Park, 350108 Fuzhou, PR China. Tel.: +86 591
38725008; fax: +86 591 22866537.
E-mail addresses: wubo@fzu.edu.cn (B. Wu), a.brueckner-Foit@uni-kassel.de
(A. Brckner-Foit), qli@fzu.edu.cn (Q. Li), cliiverson@sina.com (L. Chen),
fujinbiao0114@yahoo.com.cn (J. Fu), arbor4388@sina.com (C. Zhang).
0142-1123/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2009.02.013

may also involve material properties that are randomly distributed. Cracks found by inspection determine the component to be
retiring or not.
The basic ideas of the reliability assessment tool are presented
in this paper. The probabilistic fracture mechanics model is described in Section 2. In Section 3, a semi-elliptical surface crack
growth model subjected to fatigue load is discussed and programmed. The demonstration of the reliability assessment tool is
given in Section 4 with a four-point-bending bar. A summary and
outlook are presented in Section 5.

2. The framework of reliability assessment tool

and probabilistic fracture mechanics model
2.1. The framework of reliability assessment tool
The framework of the reliability assessment tool is sketched in
Fig. 1. The ABAQUS, PATRAN and ANSYS represent the commercial
nite element analysis software packages, and any of them can be
employed depending on the availability. The ginput.for le is an
interface program developed in the current work to extract the
data of the geometry model and the stress eld from the nite element analysis, which coincides with the commercial nite element
analysis package mentioned above, and the STAUF is a nite element analysis post-processor developed in the current work based
on the probabilistic fracture mechanics method.

B. Wu et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 18821888

1883

Nomenclature
a

the crack size, in the semi-elliptical crack, a represents

the minor semi-axis (in depth)
the initial crack size
a0
the critical size of crack
ac
a(c,0)(x,x) the critical initial crack size,
c
the major semi-axis of the semi-elliptical crack
(on surface)
the aspect ratio of the cracks at the beginning of the
a0/c0
lifetime
a/c
the crack aspect ratio during the fatigue process
d
the diameter of the precipitate particles
w
the width of the plate
t
the thick of the plate
A
the surface of the component under consideration
dA
the surface elements under consideration
M
the average number of crack on the surface area A of the
component
the mean density of surface crack on the component
M0
n
the statistically independent cracks on the surface
elements dA of the component
N
the cycle number
the corresponding cycle numbers of crack size an
Nn
Nf
the lifetime (the cycle numbers to failure)
C, m
the parameters of the Paris law of the fatigue crack
growth
r
the applied stress eld
req
the equivalent stress
rmax
the maximum fatigue load
rmin
the minimum fatigue load
rn, sII, sIII the projections of the stress tensor on the crack plane
KI, KII, KIII the stress intensity factors with the mode I, II, III
YI, YII, YIII the geometric correction factors with the mode I, II, III
x
the orientation of the crack plane
g(KI, KII, KIII) the failure criterion
the critical value of the failure criterion
gc
the equivalent mode I stress intensity factor
K Ieq
the mode I fracture toughness of the material
KIc
x
the location of the cracks
the probability density functions of the location
fA

Px
X

the probability of a surface crack having the location x

the orientation of the crack relative to a pre-dened
coordinate system
the probability density functions of the orientation
fX
the probability of a surface crack having the orientation
Px
x relative to the global coordinate system
the probability density function of the initial crack size
fa0 a
the probability of a crack size exceeding the critical
PF a
value
1
1
PF ; Q F the failure probability of a component containing exact
one crack
1
the survival probability of a component containing
PS
exact one crack
n
the failure probability of a component containing n
PF
statistically independent cracks
n
the survival probability of a component containing n
PS
statistically independent cracks
the survival probability of a component containing an
PS,A
arbitrary number of surface cracks
the failure probability of a component containing an
PF,A
arbitrary number of surface cracks
the probability of having exact n cracks on the surface A
Pn
of a component with an average number M of cracks
F a0 ac;0 the cumulative probability distribution function of the
initial crack size a(c,0)
DK, DKA, DKc the stress intensity factor range in general, in
deepest point A and on surface point C, respectively
the stress intensity factor in deepest point A and on
KA, KC
surface point C, respectively
E(k)
the second elliptical integral
z
the vector of all random variables
Z1, . . ., Zk the random variables of type (1)
ABAQUS, PATRAN, ANSYS
the commercial nite element
analysis software packages
ginput.for the interface program between the nite element
analysis and nite element analysis post-processor
STAUF
a nite element analysis post-processor
GUI
the graphical user interface

(1) Finite element analysis (FEA) pre-process.

(2) Finite element analysis (FEA).
(3) Finite element analysis (FEA) output data extract and
rearrangement.
(4) Probabilistic fracture mechanics computation.
(5) Result graphical presentation.
(6) Graphical user interface (GUI).
Steps (36) are the so-called nite element analysis post-processor. In the present paper, the emphasis is put on the probabilistic fracture mechanics model.
2.2. Probabilistic fracture mechanics model

Fig. 1. The framework of the reliability assessment tool.

Generally, the procedure of the reliability assessment can be

subdivided into the following steps:

Compared with the volume aws, the surface aws are believed
to be more dangerous in metallic materials, so the surface cracks
are considered as the risk inherent aws in this work.
Probabilistic fracture mechanics [57] is used to describe the
failure behaviour induced by inherent cracks. Unstable propagation, i.e. spontaneous failure, occurs if the crack size exceeds a certain critical value ac. The random orientation of a crack in the
applied stress eld r in general leads to a mixed-mode load of

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B. Wu et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 18821888

the crack with the mode I, II, III stress intensity factors KI, KII and
KIII, respectively.

p
a  YI
p
K II sII  a  Y II
p
K III sIII  a  Y III
K I rn 

1
2
3

where YI, YII and YIII denote the corresponding geometric correction
factors, rn, sII and sIII denote the projections of the stress tensor on
the crack plane. Obviously, the values obtained for the projections
of the stress tensor depend on the orientation x of the crack plane.
The failure of cracks subjected to the mixed-mode load is described in terms of the failure criterion g(KI, KII, KIII). Failure occurs
if g exceeds a critical value gc

system, and 2p is the normalization factor of the uniform distribution of the random orientations of cracks normal to the surface.
The failure probability of a component containing exactly one
crack with random size, location, and orientation failing because
of the unstable propagation of the crack is obtained by multiplying
the probability P F a , Px, and Px and summing over all possible locations and orientations of the crack
1

PF

1
A

Z
A

1
2p

Z Z

ac x;x

fa0 adadXdA

12

The corresponding survival probability is

1

PS 1  PF

13
n
PS

It is common practice to express the failure condition in terms

of an equivalent mode I stress intensity factor dened as

The survival probability

of a component containing n statistically independent cracks is given by the probability of simultan
neous survival of the n cracks. Hence, PS equals the product of
the individual survival probabilities

gK Ieq ; 0; 0 gK I ; K II ; K III

PS 1  PF n

g  gc

The failure criterion g P gc can be reformulated in terms of the

mode I fracture toughness:

K Ieq  K Ic

An equivalent stress req is dened as

p
K Ieq req Y I a

req depends on the local value of the stress tensor r and on the orientation x. Eq. (7) is only valid if req can be considered constant
along the crack size a, i.e. for small stress gradients. In the source
code, different criteria for the determination of the equivalent stress
req are prepared for choice by user. From Eq. (7), the critical crack
size ac is determined by

ac

K IC

2

where rmax is the maximum stress in the load case.

Failure occurs if a, the size of a given crack, exceeds the critical
value ac. The probability of a crack size exceeding the critical value
is given by

PF a

14

For the statistically independent innitesimal surface elements

dA, the actual number n of cracks contained in a component is a
Poisson distribution random variable. The probability of having exactly n cracks on the surface A of a component with an average
number M of cracks is

Pn

M n eM
n!

15

The survival probability PS,A of a component containing an arbitrary number of surface cracks is obtained by multiplying the probn
ability Pn with the corresponding survival probability P S and
summing over all possible numbers of cracks
1
X

Pn  PS

16

n0

Taking into consideration the above two Eqs. (14) and (15) and
the series expansion rule for the exponential function, Eq. (16)
leads to
1

PS;A expM  PF

17

The corresponding expression for the failure probability is

1
ac x;x

PS;A
8

Y rmax

fa0 ada

where a is the size of the crack in certain location x and orientation

x on the bulk material or component, fa0 a denotes the probability
density function of the initial crack size a0. The formula of failure
probability described in Eq. (9) can be applied in many damage process such as stress corrosion cracking, static tensile load and cyclic
load. It is the one of basements to compute the failure probability of
fatigue process in the present study.
In the present work, only homogeneous and isotropic materials
are considered. This implies that uniform distributions are used to
describe the scatter of the location x and of the orientation x of the
cracks. With the aid of the corresponding probability density functions fA and fX, the probability Px of a surface crack having the location x and the probability Px of a surface crack having the
orientation x relative to the global coordinate system are obtained
as follows

1
 dA
A
1
Px fX xdX
 dX
2p
Px fA xdA

10
11

where A denotes the surface of the component under consideration,

X is the orientation of the crack relative to a pre-dened coordinate

PF;A 1  expM  PF

18

In common practice, user inputs the value of the mean density

of surface crack M0, so the average crack number, M in surface area
A is

M A  M0

19

and Eq. (18) is transformed into

1

PF;A 1  expM 0  A  PF

20

During the process of fatigue loading, the value of M0 depends

strongly on the crack initiation mechanism and the incubation
time. If the alloy contains micro-cracks as shown in Fig. 2, a certain
percentage of these cracks will start to grow immediately, whereas
some will be blocked by micro-structural barriers and only start to
grow after a certain number of load cycles. If the forging procedure
can be improved in such a way that no micro-cracks are introduced
in manufacturing routine, the fatigue damage is mostly likely related to the inclusion structure of the material. Most inclusions
are spherical. This implies that any micro-crack, which may be initiated from these inclusions after a certain number of load cycles,
needs a much longer incubation time. For the time being, we assume that all micro-cracks do start to extend once subjected to fatigue loading. This assumption can be changed as soon as we have

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B. Wu et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 18821888

0.8

PF
Crack Size with LogNormal Distribution

0.6

f(a)

0.4
Failure domain

0.2

PFa =
0.0

ac
0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30
0.40
0.50
Crack size, a (mm)

0.60

0.70

Fig. 2. The schematic failure domain in the initial state.

more information about the defect structure of the individual alloy.

In the sequential work, the phase of crack initiation has been considered to integrate into the reliability assessment framework [4].
Since the present paper focuses on the probabilistic fracture
mechanics model, the crack initiation is not discussed in more details, the interested reader can refer to the concerning literatures.
Micro-cracks may have very complicated geometry, which depends strongly on the initiation and crack extension mechanisms
in the early stage. Even though these phenomena may be interesting from a theoretical point of view, a lifetime model for real components has to rely on comparatively coarse assumptions in order
to infer design rules from an incomplete database. Therefore, the
fatigue damage is modelled as a population of semi-elliptical surface cracks, which extend in depth and length direction governed
by the crack growth law. The determination of fatigue crack
growth and failure will be discussed in Section 3 in detail.
Suppose that the initial crack sizes show a lognormal distribution, the schematic failure domain of the initial state (i.e. fatigue
loading cycle N = 0) is shown in Fig. 2, and the schematic failure domain during the fatigue damage process is shown in Fig. 3.
Based on the linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) theory,
when considering the failure probability during the process of fatigue loading, Eq. (9) can be transformed into

PF a

ac;0 x;x

fa0 ada

21

and Eq. (12) can be transformed into

1
A

1
2p

Z Z

1
ac;0 x;x

fa0 adadXdA

22

where a(c,0)(x, x) is the critical initial crack size, which will reach the
critical size ac after N cycles loading. a(c,0)(x, x) depends on the
location of the crack, its orientation, material properties and load
conditions. Predening the cycle number of N, a(c,0)(x, x) can be
determined by integrating the crack growth law and inserting the
result into the failure criterion, see Section 3. An efcient numerical
algorithm for the solution of this problem has been nished. The
transformation of the failure domain simplies the question very
much since it is very difcult to obtain the probability density
function of the crack once the subcritical cracks start to grow under
fatigue loading.
Considering all the random variables [8] involved in the
fatigue process, the failure probability that a specic crack starts
to extend in an unstable manner described in Eq. (22) can be
treated as
1

PF

fz zdz

23

failure domain

where z is the vector of all random variables. There are three types
of random variables
(1) Random variables with limited amount of scatter with comparatively good database. These are the parameters of the
crack growth law (C, m), the fracture toughness (KIc), the
aspect ratio of the cracks (a0/c0) at the beginning of the lifetime, the applied loads (rmax, rmin) and the component
geometry. In a probabilistic analysis, these variables can be
dealt with in a crude Monte Carlo simulation.
(2) Random variables with broad scatter, good database and
strong inuence on the results. These are the micro-cracks
location x and orientation x. In this study, only homogeneous and isotropic materials are considered. This implies
that uniform distributions have to be used to describe the
scatter of the location x and of the orientation x of the
cracks. An efcient integration algorithm is needed in order
to obtain good estimates of the failure probability. In this
work, the Gauss quadrature rule for each nite element is
employed.
(3) Random variables on which very limited information is
available. This is the crack size distribution at the beginning
of the lifetime (fa0 a). A library of statistical models is provided in the package from which the user could select a suitable one.
Keeping these considerations in mind, the failure probability
can be written as

0.8
1

PF

Crack Size with LogNormal Distribution

Z
range of Z 1 ;...Z k

0.6

f(a)

ac

Z
range of Z 1 ;...Z k

0.00

0.10

0.20

Z pZ
0

fa0 adadAdXdz1 . . . dzk

24

where Z1, . . ., Zk are random variables of type (1). Solving the innermost integral of Eq. (24) leads to

QF
a(c,0)

1 1

A p

Failure domain

0.2

0.0

failure domain

da
= C( K A )m
dN

0.4

fZ1 z1  . . . fZk zk 

0.30
0.40
0.50
Crack size, a (mm)

0.60

Fig. 3. The schematic failure domain during the cyclic load process.

0.70

fZ1 z1  . . .  fZk zk 

1 1

A p

1  F a0 ac;0 dAdXdz1 . . . dzk

Z p
0

25

where F a0 ac;0 is the cumulative probability distribution function

of the critical initial crack size a(c,0) which will reach the critical
crack size ac after certain cycles of fatigue loading.

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B. Wu et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 18821888

3. The semi-elliptical surface cracks growth model under

fatigue loading
In this study, as mentioned in Section 2, the surface aw is modelled as semi-elliptical crack, which is sketched in Fig. 4, where c
and a are the major and minor semi-axis of the semi-elliptical
crack, respectively. w and t are the width and thick of the plate,
respectively. And the quantitative relationships are t  a and
w  c.
Paris-Erdagon equation [9] is employed to describe the relation
between the crack-growth rate and stress intensity factor range at
deepest point A and surface point C on the semi-elliptical surface
crack

da
CDK A m
dN
dc
CDK C m
dN

26
27

where C and m are the material parameters during the fatigue process. c and a are the major and minor semi-axis of the semi-elliptical crack, respectively. DKA and DKC represent the stress intensity
factor ranges in deepest point A and on surface point C, respectively.
The stress intensity factor range DK involves the geometry factors. Based on NewmanRaju Equation [10], Fett [11] proposed an
extension geometry factor formula for the semi-elliptical surface
cracks, which covers the range 0 6 a/c 6 1.8. The general geometry
factor is given in Eq. (28)

r!
a10
a
Y I 1:13  0:1 
 tanh0:1 
c
c
p h
 2
14
i
p
a
2
2

 cos2 h sin h
1 0:1  1  sin h 
c
Ek

maxK A ;K C K Ic
da
CDK A m C
dN

m
a112  Dr  p
pa
1:13  0:00997 

c
Ek

30

33
34
35

36

a an jNNn

37

When solving the system of equations containing ordinary differential equation, generally, we separate the variables and convert to its
integration form

Nn

an

a0

an

1
DK A m da
C

m

a112  Dr  p
1
pa
da

1:13  0:00997 

C
c
Ek

38

Once the initial conditions K Ic ; rmax ; rmin ; C; m; a0 ; a0 =c0 are given, solving Eqs. (29)(35), we can get the critical crack size ac under the failure condition. Thereafter, we integrate the crack growth
Eq. (38) from a0 to an (an = ac) and get the fatigue cycles to failure.
Due to the complicacy of the system of equations, the numerical
solution is employed. The relationship between the load cycles to
failure and the initial conditions can be established numerically
as follow

Nf Nf K Ic ; rmax ; rmin ; C; m; a0 ; a0 =c0

29

32

a a0 jN0

a0

28

31

where Eq. (29) represents the stress intensity factor in deepest

point A, Eq. (30) represents the stress intensity factor on surface
point C, Eq. (31) represents the crack aspect ratio, Eqs. (32) and
(33) are the second elliptical integrals, Eq. (34) represents failure
criterion, and Eq. (35) represents fatigue crack growth process.
The boundary conditions of Eq. (35) are given in the following

where E(k) is the second elliptical integral. Now we can establish

the following system of coupled differential equations comprising
Eqs. (29)(35) to compute the semi-elliptical surface crack growth
under fatigue load [6]

a112  r  p
pa
K A 1:13  0:00997 

c
Ek


a112  r  p
a12
pa

K C 1:13  0:00997 
 1:1 
c
Ek
c

2
"
!#m2
 m2
c m2
2
a
a0 2
0
m
m
1  1:1 
1:1
c
a
c0
1


a1:65 2
Ek 1 1:464
; when 0 < a=c  1
c

a1:65 12
; when 1 < a=c < 1:8
Ek 1 1:464
c

39

In practice, the lifetime Nf is a user prescribed parameter, and

the corresponding initial crack size a(c,0)(x, x) is what should be
determined in order to compute the distribution of the failure

Lifetime, Cycle

1E6

1E5

1E4

KIc=50 MPa(m)
c=1.36E-10
m=2.25

0.5

max =250 MPa

min =50 MPa
a0/c0=0.75

1E3
1E-3
Fig. 4. The semi-elliptical surface crack in a plate with thickness t and width w.

0.01
0.1
Initial crack size, a (mm)

Fig. 5. The schematic relationship between the initial crack size and lifetime.

1887

B. Wu et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 18821888

probability. The iterative step has to be involved in the numerical

program, so the efcient algorithm is very important to improve
the computing time.
The relationship between the initial crack size and lifetime during the fatigue process is shown in Fig. 5 schematically.
Our calculation show that the aspect ratio a/c of the crack when
failure tend to be constant at 0.90 if the initial crack is considerably
smaller than the critical crack size. Once the corresponding critical
initial crack size a(c,0)(x, x) is determined, the distribution of the
failure probability can be computed easily.

Table 3
The reliability assessment for the four-point-bending bar under cyclic load.

4. The demonstration of the reliability assessment tool

In the primary period, the four-point-bending bar is employed
to verify the usability of the reliability assessment tool, although
it is designed to compute any complex geometry and load case

[6]. The sketch of the four-point-bending bar is shown in Fig. 6.

The failure probability distributions are predicted under the initial
conditions shown in Tables 1 and 2.
The nite element model, displacement and Von Mises stress
distribution of the four-point-bending bar under unit compress
stress are shown in Fig. 7. The failure probability distributions
are predicted under different load cycles; see Table 3, Figs. 8 and
9. The local failure probability distributions allow us to identify

Load case

Load value
rmax ; MPa
rmin MPa

250
50

250
50

Lifetime (Nf, cycles, prescribed)

Local failure probability distribution
Global failure probability, PF,A
Global survival probability, PS,A

40,000
Fig. 8
0.0064
0.99352

50,000
Fig. 9
0.38045
0.61955

Fig. 6. The sketch of the four-point-bending bar.

Table 1
The parameters of the initial cracks.
Aspect ratio
(a0/c0)

Crack density (M0)

Numbers/mm2

Crack size
Distribution
type

Mean
(mm)

Variance

0.75

50

Lognormal
distribution

0.10

0.0016

Table 2
The fatigue crack growth parameter of material (mean).
p
KIc (MPa  m)
C
50

10

1.3610

Fig. 8. The local failure probability distribution of the four-point-bending bar

subjected to 40,000 cyclic loads, and the global failure probability is 0.0064.

2.25

Fig. 7. The FEM model, displacement and Von Mises stress distribution of the fourpoint-bending bar in the nite element analysis under unit load. The type of nite
element is C3D8.

Fig. 9. The local failure probability distribution of the four-point-bending bar

subjected to 50,000 cyclic loads, and the global failure probability is 0.38045.

1888

B. Wu et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 31 (2009) 18821888

the critical regions of the component visually, although there is no

fatigue data to compare for the similar four-point-bending bar of
the considered alloy. Both the global failure probability and the local failure probability distribution can be considered as the essential and fundamental data in structure design and system
maintenance.
5. Summary and outlook
A general reliability assessment framework was proposed. The
lifetime distribution of the bulk metallic material or component
can be determined by combining materials information, nite element analysis and probabilistic fracture mechanics model. The
probabilistic fracture mechanics model and the fatigue crack
growth model were analysed and programmed. The global failure
probability and local failure probability distribution of a fourpoint-bending bar under fatigue loading were assessed as demonstration. However, the crack initiation and short crack growth have
not yet been fully integrated into the current probabilistic fracture
mechanics model. And the Monte Carlo simulation should be consideration further to deal with the rst type random variables on
which with limited amount of scatter and with comparatively good
database. Last but not least, the exact assessment value depends
strongly on the accumulation of material database.
Acknowledgments
This study was initially performed under the European Union
nancial support through Grant NNE5/2001/375 (Nanorotor),
which involved six European partners. Numerous helpful and clar-

ifying discussions have been made. The Science Foundations in

Fuzhou University through Project Nos. 826212, 2007F3045, and
2007-XQ-03 are gratefully acknowledged to continue the interesting research topic.
References
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Testing and Materials; 1983. p. 6778.
[2] Brckner-Foit A, Jaeckels H. Prediction of the lifetime distribution of highstrength components subjected to fatigue loading. Fatigue Fract Eng Mater
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[3] Wei RP, Harlow DG. Mechanistically based probability modelling, life
prediction and reliability assessment. Model Simul Mater Sci Eng
2005;13(1):R3351.
[4] Besel M, Brckner-Foit A. Lifetime prediction of components including
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